In today’s hysterical anti-gun atmosphere, the answer, at least for public-school students, is apparently no. The day after a first-grade boy in Ficker’s state was suspended from school for using his fingers as a gun during recess, a kindergarten girl in Pennsylvania was sent home for 10 days merely for telling her friends that she would shoot them with a Hello Kitty soap-bubble gun — a toy that was not even in her possession at the time.

Ficker, who is being retained by the unnamed girl’s family, told the Sunbury, Pennsylvania, Daily Item that it all began on January 10, while the girl was waiting for her school bus.

According to the paper, “Ficker said the girl mentioned that she was going to shoot one of her friends and then herself with the bubble gun, so that they could all be together. Then, she was going to shoot herself again when she got home.” These remarks, he stated, were “not said in malice.”

“The girl did not have the bubble gun with her and has never shot a real gun in her life,” Ficker told PennLive.

Officials at Mount Carmel Area Elementary School, which the girl attends, found out about the conversation, and the next day they questioned her about it for three hours, Ficker said. Ultimately, they decided she was guilty of making a “terroristic threat” and suspended her for 10 days, he added. Her parents say they were not contacted by the school about the incident or the questioning until the decision to suspend had already been made.

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